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Rejection of Catholic Moral Teaching

Becoming the Law

In Portugal, homosexual marriage is soon to become legal. Legislation has been approved; it has survived a court challenge and will likely survive a possible presidential veto. But chances appear slim that such a veto will be forthcoming, as President Anibal Cavaco Silva has maintained his silence throughout the controversy that has pitted the Catholic Church — his Church — against the socialist controlled parliament. (See:http://www.euronews.net/2010/04/09/portugal-s-top-court-gives-gay-marriage-green-light/)

Portugal will join five other European countries that have already legalized “gay marriage:” Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. In the United States, the battle is being fought state by state, but despite repeated rejection in referenda, legislatures and courts have proved willing to disregard majority opinion in favor of political correctness.

It is as though the last traces of Christendom are disappearing and protests are received with boredom from lack of interest.

In Canada, the Parliament is set to have its second and final hour of debate on a bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Ottawa on April 20. A vote is expected April 21. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is urging everyone to contact their MPs to urge them to oppose the bill. (See:http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040812.html)

If the measure — Bill C-384 — passes, another layer of Catholic morality will have been peeled away. And without the restraint of that morality, those who wish to dispose of the old and infirm as drains upon the national health service and social resources in general will have been given an impetus to expand their eugenics program to other classes of what they call “undesirable” human beings.

In Belgium, where euthanasia was legalized in 2002, requests for assisted suicide have tripled in eight years. Most assisted suicides occur at home. But pro-life activists claim that doctors often take matters into their own hands, terminating patients who have not requested their help to end their lives. (See:http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040901.html)

At the University of Calgary, a pro-life student group has been threatened with arrest and prosecution if it goes ahead with a scheduled display called the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP). Campus Pro-Life has been informed by university officials that unless the group turns its signs inwards, so that they cannot be seen by passersby, they will be subject to fines and criminal prosecution. (See:http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040902.html)

Meanwhile, back in the USA, the Senate is considering legislation based on the United Nations’ Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The provisions of CEDAW do not explicitly promote abortion, but Focus on the Family’s research has found that the CEDAW committee has pressured over 75 countries to legalize or increase access to abortion since 1995. (See:http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040809.html)

The Ultimate Target

One could go on, continent by continent, nation by nation, but the pattern is clear and consistent. A war is being waged on a global scale against the moral teachings of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church, especially in regard to homosexuality, abortion and assisted suicide.

Where are all of these legislative and judicial fiats taking us? At what point will they coalesce? When will opposing the law of the land become defined as a criminal offense, where it is not already classified as such? When will the public expression of Catholic moral teaching become outlawed in the West? When will Catholics be jailed or executed for simply obeying their Catholic conscience rather than obeying the “almighty” State.

Pope Benedict XVI stands in opposition to the powers that be in most all the nations that once called themselves Christian. He represents a moral vision that has been anathematized by an increasingly godless society which has made man, not God, the center of its universe.

The attacks upon the Pope, which have been growing more shrill, are increasing in their virulence. On Friday of Easter week, a high-ranking United Nations judge urged Great Britain to detain Pope Benedict when he visits Britain so that he might be tried for “crimes against humanity.”

Geoffrey Robertson is one of five jurists appointed to the UN’s internal justice system. He has said the Pope should be made to answer for the worldwide sexual abuses and cover-ups involving the Catholic clergy. (See:http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040810.html)

His exhortation may presently be treated as rhetoric, but at what point will a call for such action against the Supreme Pontiff be taken seriously?

It appears that Benedict may be the Holy Father foreseen in the Fatima prophecies who will have much to suffer. He needs Heaven’s help, for no human prudence or diplomatic policy will suffice for the present and coming crises in the Church and the world.

That is why Our Lady’s Apostolate is convening a conference of the world’s Fatima experts in Rome from Monday, May 3 to Friday, May 7. The Fatima Challenge will bring the Fatima Message in all its timeliness and urgency into the media spotlight. Vatican Radio will be covering the conference and noted Italian journalists will be participating.

We urge all our supporters to pray fervently for the success of The Fatima Challenge. Those supporters who wish can attend in person, as there is still some space available. Reservations can be made online at: www.fatimachallenge.com. The website also provides updates on the conference and offers everyone an opportunity to submit questions and concerns for our panel of experts who will meet each afternoon of the conference.

When The Fatima Challenge begins, the web site will begin transmitting the talks and debates. You can follow the conference online. But whatever your level of participation might be in this unique historic event, please pray for the Holy Father, pray for the success of this conference, pray that Our Lady of Fatima’s requests will at long last be heeded.

Donations to help finance the conference — and to help make it available worldwide on the Internet in English and Italian — may be made by filling out the secured Fatima Challenge donation form.

Latest Fatima Perspectives by

Christopher A. Ferrara

“Friendly Reflections?” A Summary of the Critique – “Friendly Reflections?” is a lengthy critique of arguments by one Antonio Borelli against the existence of a text of the Third Secret of Fatima that would accompany and explain, in the Blessed Virgin’s own words, the vision of “the Bishop dressed in White” published on June 26, 2000. The title of the critique is a play on the title of Borelli’s piece, which purports to provide “friendly reflections” on the Third Secret controversy in the spirit of promoting unity among Catholics. But, as the critique demonstrates, Borelli’s “friendly reflections” — no matter what his subjective intention may have been — seem calculated to disrupt the unity that already exists among faithful Catholics who have studied the controversy, considered the evidence, and arrived at the conclusion so candidly expressed by Mother Angelica on live television a year after the vision was published.

The Last Days of Cardinal Kasper – Examines the fast-approaching end of the “ecumenical” career of Cardinal Walter Kasper, as reported in an article by The National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen. The Cardinal’s penchant for undermining Catholic dogma (for example, his denial of the historical reality of the apostolic succession and his call to “revisit” Pope Leo XIII’s infallible proclamation on the invalidity of Anglican priestly orders) has been a focus of this column for years.

The Liturgy and the World – In an interview with the Italian journal Il Foglio, the head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Antonio Cardinal Canizares-Llovera, made some astonishing remarks on the state of the Catholic liturgy today, after more than forty years of post-Vatican II “renewal,” and on the Pope’s historic decision to free the Latin Mass from the pseudo-prohibition that had been unjustly imposed upon it in the name of the Second Vatican Council.

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